The Hats are Back! (Day 90)

A walk up Mount Victoria requires wearing hats, especially when it is a gloriously sunny day. And of course, if you are wearing a hat - we found out it's only right to doff it!

After a delicious breakfast overlooking the calm #LyallBay in Wellington, watching a couple bathing, with the odd interruption of planes and helicopter leaving and entering the airport next door, we drove to #MountVictoria. For some reason, Tim parked the car near the bottom so that we could have a bit of a climb (this is becoming a bit of a habit). It was a glorious day so I suggested we wore our hats. We haven’t worn them for some time and getting withdrawal symptoms. We had just started our walk when a young guy past us by. We said hello and instead of replying, he tipped his bucket hat at us. It was such an old fashioned thing to do.

My Dad often wore a hat when he was out when we were kids and would always doff his hat. Tim got the giggles, which started me off. Every time we past someone, Tim doffed his hat.

What a great word #Doff! Apparently, in 1896 James Boyle got fed up having to #doff his hat often so invented and patented a self-doffing device. Needless to say it didn’t catch on.

We eventually got to the top of Mount Victoria, and was rewarded with 360 degree panoramic views of Wellington. Talk about lucky with the weather, beautifully clear blue sky rather than the cloud we’ve had of late.

On the way back down I noticed that some people would respond with our greeting of Hello and others ignored us. It reminded me when we went to Split in Croatia where hardly anyone returned our smiles – in fact we had a goal of getting 100 people to respond to us in a week and only achieved 7!

If someone passes you and says hello or smiles, what do you do? Do you ignore them or respond? I am so curious why people do ignore others. Perhaps they don’t even notice and are deep in thought, or perhaps they just think we are a couple of nutters.

Later, we got on the Ferry to reach the South Island. A very relaxing and calm journey, reading, watching the tree covered islands between the North Island (TeIka a Maul, meaning Fish of Maui) and South Island (Te Wai Pounamu, meaning the waters of greenstone). I was also messaging my sister who is holidaying in Kerala, South India. There we are in 2 different continents, sending and receiving messages instantly – technology does amaze me.

When we travelled to Kerala in December, we stayed with a lovely family Francis and Jancy for 11 days and become very close with them. Cut a long story short, my sister and our brother-in-law went and met Francis today at Hill Palace and sent me some wonderful photos of them. And I am pleased to say that my sister and Francis were both wearing hats! (our brother-in-law let the side down). We are so thrilled to see them together – all very special people to us.

How wonderful putting people together, and that’s what so many people have done for us, which we are extremely grateful for.